She looked at the pulpy, unrecognizable mess that was my entire future, stomped into the dirt of my cultivation shed, and told me I could just grow more.
That crop was my masterpiece, a Michelin-star contract that was supposed to finally make us financially secure.
Her defense was that her children were just “connecting with nature.”
There was no insurance payout, no legal recourse, no justice to be had through any normal means.
But grief has a way of curdling into something else entirely. She wanted her children to learn from nature, but she never imagined my deep and patient knowledge of the fungal kingdom could be weaponized to dismantle her world one disgusting, foul-smelling spore at a time.
The Gathering Spore: A Whisper of Trespass
The scent of damp earth and possibility clung to me like a second skin. It was the smell of my life’s work, a perfume I wouldn’t trade for any Chanel. Here, in the climate-controlled quiet of my largest cultivation shed, I was more than Isabelle, wife to Mark and mother to a grown-and-flown son. I was a mycologist, a farmer, a whisperer of fungi.
My fingers, stained with the soil of a thousand harvests, gently brushed a nascent cluster of Pink Oysters. They unfurled from their substrate block like a delicate coral reef, their blushing color a testament to the precise balance of humidity and temperature I’d spent years perfecting. This wasn’t just farming; it was art.
“They’re perfect, Iz,” Mark’s voice rumbled from the doorway. He leaned against the frame, his face, usually creased with the worries of his own accounting work, softened by the filtered light. “Julian is going to lose his mind.”
Chef Julian. The name itself felt like a Michelin star. His new restaurant, Terroir, was the talk of the city, and he wanted my mushrooms to be the centerpiece of his launch menu. Not just any mushrooms. A massive, exclusive order of my finest Lion’s Mane and those blushing Pink Oysters. This contract wasn’t just a sale; it was a coronation. It meant financial security, yes, but more than that, it was validation. It meant my obsession, my little farm on the edge of the woods, was finally being seen for what it was.
I turned from my beauties, a smile spreading across my face. “He’d better. I’ve been babying this crop for eight weeks straight.”
That’s when I saw it. Just past Mark’s shoulder, through the open door, a flash of neon pink disappeared into the salal bushes that bordered the public trail. It was followed by a smaller flash of lime green. My smile tightened. It wasn’t the first time. Little footprints in the mud near my compost heap, a child’s forgotten hair clip by the fence line. Signs of small, uninvited explorers.
Mark followed my gaze. “The foragers are back?” he asked, the humor in his voice thin.
“It seems so,” I said, my stomach giving a little twist. The trail was public, but my land was not. A simple wire fence marked the boundary, more a suggestion than a barrier. I’d always operated on a trust system with the hikers who used the trail. But these weren’t hikers. They were children. Unsupervised, unpredictable, and getting bolder. The looming issue.
The Unschooling Manifesto
A few days later, I was mending a section of the wire fence where it had been repeatedly pushed down when I heard her voice. It was a lilting, patient sound, the kind of voice that probably sounded wonderful reading a bedtime story and utterly maddening in a disagreement.
“Kael, sweetling, remember what we said about private spaces? They’re just suggestions from a society that fears true connection with the Earth.”
I looked up from my pliers. A woman with long, flowing brown hair, wearing a tie-dye skirt and Birkenstocks, was standing on the trail. Beside her, three children—the neon pink, the lime green, and a smaller one in sunshine yellow—were staring at me with wide, curious eyes. This had to be their mother.
I stood, wiping my hands on my jeans. “Hi there. I’m Isabelle. This is my farm.”
“I’m Willow,” she said, beaming a serene smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “And these are my little wildlings: Juniper, River, and Sage.” She gestured to the children, who remained silent. “We’re just exploring our local biome. It’s part of their unschooling curriculum. Intuitive foraging.”
Intuitive foraging. I’d heard the term buzzed about in the more… crunchy corners of our town’s online forums. It sounded like a recipe for a 911 call and a stomach pump.
“That’s nice,” I said, choosing my words carefully. “But this side of the fence is private property. I grow very delicate, specialized crops here. I can’t have anyone wandering through.” I pointed to the newly tightened wire. “That’s why this is here.”
Willow’s smile remained fixed. “Oh, I understand property in the legal sense, of course. But from a holistic perspective, the Earth can’t be owned. We’re teaching the children that boundaries are often constructs of fear. They’re simply following their natural instincts, connecting with the land.”
I stared at her, my pliers feeling heavy in my hand. Her conviction was absolute, a smooth, polished stone of self-righteousness. She genuinely believed this. She wasn’t a bad person trying to cause trouble; she was a true believer, which was infinitely more dangerous.
“My mortgage company has a different perspective on who owns this land,” I said, my tone a little sharper than I intended. “And my natural instinct is to protect my livelihood. Please, keep them on the trail.”
She gave a little sigh, a puff of condescending pity. “Of course. We’ll respect your journey.” She turned to her children. “Come along, wildlings. Let’s go find some chickweed the universe wants us to have.” They trotted off after her, leaving me standing in a cloud of patchouli and disbelief.
About the Author
